And I had such high hopes about getting this started early. Instead, I've been looking at the screen for about 30 minutes, trying to figure out how to start things out. In fact, I think it's time that I bring my good friend Jim into play.
No, Jim's not the deer. That would be ridiculous, calling a deer Jim. (They prefer names like Grachn'r, Destroyer of Tree Bark. Or Janice.) No, Jim is my deer (WOCKA WOCKA. That was totally an intentional pun and was certainly not, under any circumstances, me misspelling the word "dear." That would just be absurd and foolish.) friend that I'm about to pour into a glass with some water and ice. If I had some ginger ale, I would totally rock some of that. One of the many joys of living in the Charleston area. Well, the South in general, really.
God. That is freaking delicious. Oh, Jim. You're so good at helping with the writer's block. Well, I suppose it's not actually Jim. I intend to pretend it is for the duration. I'm still not rightly sure how I didn't get into this more in college. I suppose I was cultivating my taste for gin and the like. But my burgeoning alcoholism is not what we're going to be talking about (well, me, but we'll pretend that there are several of me, because wouldn't that just make things so much easier?).
Well, there was once an idea about what to write about (ooh what to write about), but I think that it rather petered out. Time for something new, I suppose. Let's go to the random sentence generator for some ideas.
"Whatever required tutorial opposes another storm." Hmm. Nope. Not really helping. What else you got?
"The impressive variant errs." There's a commercial with a male lion stalking antelope (with night vision goggles). Come on, Geico. Third graders know that's not right. You can do better. Uh oh, and apparently cafinated shampoo has become the vogue. Yes, I just ran into a streak of describing commercials. Let's get away from that. Let's get away that and grab some candy.
I have strong suscpicions that this won't go well with the bourbon. Also, this TV has gotten straight up distracting, so off it goes. And 20 minutes later, I'm still only this far. I have got to lead a more interesting life.
You know what? Screw it. It's story time. I would post a picture around here, but Bing Images doesn't really have anything that fits the theme I'd be going for there (namely, angry storyteller).
I remember one of the big questions that they asked me in practice interviews for med school was, "Why do you want to be a doctor?" I was able to come up with a decent set of answers for the two times I got asked that during interviews (despite my pre-med committee implying that I would fail because I didn't know what I was doing. You were very wrong, and you have no idea how most MD/PhD interviews go. Good day.), it was almost always theoretical. I hadn't done much (okay, any) shadowing, and I certainly didn't have any profound and good patient experiences to share (and I count my blessings that I didn't). I had gotten sick just about once a year in elementary school, usually with ear infections and strep throat, and I got a couple of ear infections in high school. Aside from the broken collarbone and camp physicals, I don't think I ever really went to the doctor. Even then, the doctor that we had (although a solid doctor who was good at forming relationships with patients, as you would like in a family practitioner) tried to talk me out of going into medicine.
So, obviously, I didn't have much in terms of good things to say about medicine. But oh boy, did I have a bad story. And unlike some others (see: broken clavicle, the time I went blind), the Boy Scouts were not involved.
Imagine, if you will, a young Rob. He would be, oh, probably 9 years old at this point. Let's see if there's a picture of 9 year old Rob, because I'm feeling self-deprecating right now, and laughs might be had by all.
So 9 year old Rob has a bit of a sore throat. It's not too bad- he's had strep throat before by this point, and that was much worse than this. It's just a little achey, but, gosh, it's just super swollen.
A few days pass, and the threshold for a Cameron going to the doctor has been reached. We head on over to an urgent care clinic so we can get things sorted out. We get in, get me weighed and measured, vital signs were taken I'm sure, and all health care providers surely washed their hands.
Keep in mind, I'm in 4th grade at this point. This will become important as we see how just terrible this doctor is going to be.
So, the doctor comes in and asks some questions. We answer, I'm sure, perfectly dutifully. This part, I don't remember too well. I was in some degree of pain, and, well, how often do you remember all the details of a medical interview from 15 years ago? Probably not often. I do, however, remember what came next.
So, first up, the doctor (a young guy who I now realize was probably a radiology resident or some such moonlighting, because there's no way that any sort of pediatrician or other non-surgeon would have such awful bedside manner) decides that I'm just such a ladies man that I must have mono. You know, the kissing disease that's most prevalent between 15 and 35. I'm 9, and while eager to get started on the wide world of women, lack (and, well, still lack at 24) the requisite social skills to be going around contracting or spreading mono at will. This doctor, though, he clearly saw promise in me, because he wanted that blood test. I mean, I guess that looking at blood under a microscope is probably cheaper than checking for antibodies/antigens and the like (of course, that assumes that they're doing a blood smear rather than the Monospot, but whatever. We'll assume that they're just looking, because otherwise there's an added layer of stunned head cocking), but still. Even with the swollen throat (which was really the chief concern), do you want to be thinking mono in a 9 year old?
But, you know, okay. That makes some degree of sense, age aside, and at 9 years old, I certainly wouldn't have known that I need to be 15 to get mono, and I'm sure that EBV and CMV don't know that I need to be between 15 and 35 for them to get to cause mono in me. That's cool. The test came back negative, so the point was a bit on the moot side.
So, to recap where we are so far. We have a 9 year old white male presenting with a chief complaint of a swollen and sore throat. He's up to date on his vaccinations, and he's had strep throat in the past. It doesn't quite feel like strep throat to the patient, but the throat is still sore. Testing for mononucleosis is negative. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO, JACK?
Well, if you said "Get an X-ray for cancer," then you're thinking like this guy. You know what? Getting the X-ray itself? Not that bad. I mean, it's worth ruling out, I suppose. Thing is, here's how the conversation pretty much went.
Dad and I are sitting in the office. I've got my feet all dangling over the side of the table. Maybe I had a Game Boy or a book. Probably the Game Boy.
Doctor comes in. "Okay, so the test for mono was negative. We're going to take an X-ray to see if you have cancer. Come on."
... WHAT.
I mean, if memory serves, I took it a little better than my dad did, because he was (rightly) freaked. Cancer? Geeeez. That's rough. Meanwhile, I'm basically thinking, "Okay. Cancer. Huh. Wonder what happens next?"
I mean, seriously? Seriously? You couldn't have taken the parent aside and broken the news a bit more gently? You couldn't have involved the patients a bit more in that before just going with cancer? And, hey, maybe you could have done the quick test that would rule out what it ACTUALLY was before jumping to cancer?
Yeah. That's right. It was strep throat. Maybe it wasn't the most classical presentation, but geez. Try to eliminate the obvious (and innocuous) things first. If those are wrong, then, sure, maybe it's time to think outside the box a little bit more, but you would think that you would go for the obvious disease (given age and symptoms) rather than going for one that doesn't fit the age or the one that a.) will be hanging around for a bit if it IS there and b.) is going to (possibly needlessly) scare the living daylights out of the family just by testing.
Fast forward to, well, close enough to now. You want to know why I want to do medicine? It really has nothing to do with this story. I want to help people. I want them to go home nice and happy, and I want them to understand what's going on with their bodies to a reasonable degree. I want to have an impact on people's lives. If that's not good enough (which, according to those professors at Davidson who gave me that mock-interview, it really wasn't), I've got a great-grandfather that I never met (but who was apparently straight up AWESOME) who was a doctor. I don't really have the family history of practicing medicine. I do, however, have a story about how a doctor really, REALLY could have done better. I could have done better at 9 (well, with the bedside manner. I was still trying to figure out these weird fraction things, so I don't have illusions about having been a good doctor.). I can do better now. And in however many years it takes for me to get out of med school and get the big M and D next to my name (with a possibly bigger set of a P, h, and D), I'm going to go out there and do that. And if a 9 year old comes into my office with a sore throat, he's getting a cotton swab to the pharynx, because that keeps him from getting an open wound or getting blasted with a bunch of low energy gamma radiation. So, sure. He won't get to be Hulk, or Spiderman, or that newfangled Doctor Doctor that's cleaning up the streets of Charleston in a dashingly roguish manner, but I certainly don't need the competition. I mean, Doctor Doctor doesn't need the competition. I am certainly NOT Doctor Doctor, but I'm sure that he's quite handsome, LADIES.
 |
| This had to go in here somewhere. |
No, Jim's not the deer. That would be ridiculous, calling a deer Jim. (They prefer names like Grachn'r, Destroyer of Tree Bark. Or Janice.) No, Jim is my deer (WOCKA WOCKA. That was totally an intentional pun and was certainly not, under any circumstances, me misspelling the word "dear." That would just be absurd and foolish.) friend that I'm about to pour into a glass with some water and ice. If I had some ginger ale, I would totally rock some of that. One of the many joys of living in the Charleston area. Well, the South in general, really.
 |
| Wrong one. Also, ew. |
 |
| Sean Connery is pointing a glass at you. |
"Whatever required tutorial opposes another storm." Hmm. Nope. Not really helping. What else you got?
"The impressive variant errs." There's a commercial with a male lion stalking antelope (with night vision goggles). Come on, Geico. Third graders know that's not right. You can do better. Uh oh, and apparently cafinated shampoo has become the vogue. Yes, I just ran into a streak of describing commercials. Let's get away from that. Let's get away that and grab some candy.
I have strong suscpicions that this won't go well with the bourbon. Also, this TV has gotten straight up distracting, so off it goes. And 20 minutes later, I'm still only this far. I have got to lead a more interesting life.
You know what? Screw it. It's story time. I would post a picture around here, but Bing Images doesn't really have anything that fits the theme I'd be going for there (namely, angry storyteller).
I remember one of the big questions that they asked me in practice interviews for med school was, "Why do you want to be a doctor?" I was able to come up with a decent set of answers for the two times I got asked that during interviews (despite my pre-med committee implying that I would fail because I didn't know what I was doing. You were very wrong, and you have no idea how most MD/PhD interviews go. Good day.), it was almost always theoretical. I hadn't done much (okay, any) shadowing, and I certainly didn't have any profound and good patient experiences to share (and I count my blessings that I didn't). I had gotten sick just about once a year in elementary school, usually with ear infections and strep throat, and I got a couple of ear infections in high school. Aside from the broken collarbone and camp physicals, I don't think I ever really went to the doctor. Even then, the doctor that we had (although a solid doctor who was good at forming relationships with patients, as you would like in a family practitioner) tried to talk me out of going into medicine.
So, obviously, I didn't have much in terms of good things to say about medicine. But oh boy, did I have a bad story. And unlike some others (see: broken clavicle, the time I went blind), the Boy Scouts were not involved.
Imagine, if you will, a young Rob. He would be, oh, probably 9 years old at this point. Let's see if there's a picture of 9 year old Rob, because I'm feeling self-deprecating right now, and laughs might be had by all.
 |
| Okay, maybe it's a bit early. but as you can see, I was always a stylish so and so. |
So 9 year old Rob has a bit of a sore throat. It's not too bad- he's had strep throat before by this point, and that was much worse than this. It's just a little achey, but, gosh, it's just super swollen.
A few days pass, and the threshold for a Cameron going to the doctor has been reached. We head on over to an urgent care clinic so we can get things sorted out. We get in, get me weighed and measured, vital signs were taken I'm sure, and all health care providers surely washed their hands.
 |
| Dr. Semmelweis is always watching. Always. |
Keep in mind, I'm in 4th grade at this point. This will become important as we see how just terrible this doctor is going to be.
So, the doctor comes in and asks some questions. We answer, I'm sure, perfectly dutifully. This part, I don't remember too well. I was in some degree of pain, and, well, how often do you remember all the details of a medical interview from 15 years ago? Probably not often. I do, however, remember what came next.
So, first up, the doctor (a young guy who I now realize was probably a radiology resident or some such moonlighting, because there's no way that any sort of pediatrician or other non-surgeon would have such awful bedside manner) decides that I'm just such a ladies man that I must have mono. You know, the kissing disease that's most prevalent between 15 and 35. I'm 9, and while eager to get started on the wide world of women, lack (and, well, still lack at 24) the requisite social skills to be going around contracting or spreading mono at will. This doctor, though, he clearly saw promise in me, because he wanted that blood test. I mean, I guess that looking at blood under a microscope is probably cheaper than checking for antibodies/antigens and the like (of course, that assumes that they're doing a blood smear rather than the Monospot, but whatever. We'll assume that they're just looking, because otherwise there's an added layer of stunned head cocking), but still. Even with the swollen throat (which was really the chief concern), do you want to be thinking mono in a 9 year old?
 |
| Look at those ballerina skirts! Mmm reactive lymphocytes. |
But, you know, okay. That makes some degree of sense, age aside, and at 9 years old, I certainly wouldn't have known that I need to be 15 to get mono, and I'm sure that EBV and CMV don't know that I need to be between 15 and 35 for them to get to cause mono in me. That's cool. The test came back negative, so the point was a bit on the moot side.
So, to recap where we are so far. We have a 9 year old white male presenting with a chief complaint of a swollen and sore throat. He's up to date on his vaccinations, and he's had strep throat in the past. It doesn't quite feel like strep throat to the patient, but the throat is still sore. Testing for mononucleosis is negative. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO, JACK?
 |
| Shoot the hostage, of course. |
Dad and I are sitting in the office. I've got my feet all dangling over the side of the table. Maybe I had a Game Boy or a book. Probably the Game Boy.
Doctor comes in. "Okay, so the test for mono was negative. We're going to take an X-ray to see if you have cancer. Come on."
... WHAT.
I mean, if memory serves, I took it a little better than my dad did, because he was (rightly) freaked. Cancer? Geeeez. That's rough. Meanwhile, I'm basically thinking, "Okay. Cancer. Huh. Wonder what happens next?"
I mean, seriously? Seriously? You couldn't have taken the parent aside and broken the news a bit more gently? You couldn't have involved the patients a bit more in that before just going with cancer? And, hey, maybe you could have done the quick test that would rule out what it ACTUALLY was before jumping to cancer?
|
| Let me reiterate with a larger GIF. |
Yeah. That's right. It was strep throat. Maybe it wasn't the most classical presentation, but geez. Try to eliminate the obvious (and innocuous) things first. If those are wrong, then, sure, maybe it's time to think outside the box a little bit more, but you would think that you would go for the obvious disease (given age and symptoms) rather than going for one that doesn't fit the age or the one that a.) will be hanging around for a bit if it IS there and b.) is going to (possibly needlessly) scare the living daylights out of the family just by testing.
Fast forward to, well, close enough to now. You want to know why I want to do medicine? It really has nothing to do with this story. I want to help people. I want them to go home nice and happy, and I want them to understand what's going on with their bodies to a reasonable degree. I want to have an impact on people's lives. If that's not good enough (which, according to those professors at Davidson who gave me that mock-interview, it really wasn't), I've got a great-grandfather that I never met (but who was apparently straight up AWESOME) who was a doctor. I don't really have the family history of practicing medicine. I do, however, have a story about how a doctor really, REALLY could have done better. I could have done better at 9 (well, with the bedside manner. I was still trying to figure out these weird fraction things, so I don't have illusions about having been a good doctor.). I can do better now. And in however many years it takes for me to get out of med school and get the big M and D next to my name (with a possibly bigger set of a P, h, and D), I'm going to go out there and do that. And if a 9 year old comes into my office with a sore throat, he's getting a cotton swab to the pharynx, because that keeps him from getting an open wound or getting blasted with a bunch of low energy gamma radiation. So, sure. He won't get to be Hulk, or Spiderman, or that newfangled Doctor Doctor that's cleaning up the streets of Charleston in a dashingly roguish manner, but I certainly don't need the competition. I mean, Doctor Doctor doesn't need the competition. I am certainly NOT Doctor Doctor, but I'm sure that he's quite handsome, LADIES.
 |
| Artist's rendering. |
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